How Scotland’s Post-Punk Girl Bands Blazed A Trail Through The Male-Dominated Music Industry

“This documentary doesn’t include all girl bands. It just simply can’t. Too many have been overlooked, haven’t been written about or haven’t been remembered,” laments Carla J Easton, co-director of documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story Of Scottish Girl Bands. Created with co-director Blair Young, the film doesn’t shy away from exploring the problems of the music industry’s past – set to the soundtrack of the Scottish girl bands that it failed.  

Easton’s own experience in band TeenCanteen in the 2010s led to this discussion on gender in the music industry – Scotland’s music industry, to be more specific. From being glanced over backstage as management asked, “Where’s the band?” and the group being labelled a “female four-piece” to Easton being described as “chanteuse”, she could not escape the striking imbalance in the industry she had always dreamed of working in. 

Growing up in Scotland in the late ’90s, Easton always gravitated toward the music scene. As a teen, she looked to women artists further afield, as broadcasters and record labels were far from shouting about homegrown talent. But when ’80s Glaswegian synth-pop duo Strawberry Switchblade’s vinyl was played at a party she was at, Easton was ignited with a passion to connect with bands like this. Successful girl bands did exist in Scotland if you knew where to look, they were just at the mercy of an industry that viewed them as second-class citizens.  

Trailblazing talents from the ’60s to today give their testimonies in Easton’s evocative documentary – including The Ettes, Strawberry Switchblade, The Hedrons, Sophisticated Boom Boom, Sunset Gun, His Latest Flame, The Twinsets and Lung Leg – describing how they challenged the status quo of this male-dominated industry. Refusing to compromise might not have helped their careers, but it was the key to staying true to their art.  

“I think they just don’t know what to do with a girl band,” says Moira Rankin, lead vocalist of His Latest Flame. A great misjustice but an important proclamation. Over the eight years this project took to make, there were interviews discussing the thrill and content of ‘making it’ to the stage – however, these stories are recounted alongside memories of being taken advantage of financially, being punished for becoming pregnant (and kicked out of your band as a result) and of surviving sexual assault.  

Due to these tragedies and hierarchies within the industry, many bands did not get the run they deserved. While some have come back together after many years (including Lung Leg), and others never stopped making music (such as Strawberry Switchblade’s Rose McDowall), less than 20% of artists currently signed to major labels globally are women – proof that this issue is not one for the history books just yet. “Women are notoriously written out of history and when we write these women back into it we realise that the stats published today are not new, but [represent] almost 50 years’ worth of ongoing problems,” Easton says.  

But there’s hope for change, with new talent getting opportunities and support that the bands before them did not. Amplifi, Hen Hoose and Fanny Riot are some of the organisations helping to support and give voice to women and non-binary artists in the indie scene. Keychange is another network which aims to give community to these artists. “Every promoter should be signing up to Keychange,” says Easton. “The stage is a place of work. If you don’t believe in gender equality on stage, you’re basically saying you don’t believe in gender equality in the workplace.”  

The bands interviewed in Since Yesterday paved the path for Indie-rock duo Honeyblood, who were the first Scottish girl band to make it to No 2 on the UK album charts in 2016, and post-punk duo Sacred Paws, who won Scottish Album of the Year in 2017. Progress is in motion, as we continue to cheer on the girl bands of today who carry the legacies of the pioneers before them.  

5 More Documentaries Celebrating Pioneering Women In Music  

1. Underplayed, directed by Stacey Lee (2020) – Shines a light on inequality and blatant sexism in the dance music scene through the individual stories of artists who have lived these experiences, told during a summer festival season in 2019. 
2. Soaring Highs & Brutal Lows: The Voices Of Women In Metal, directed by Mark Harwood (2015) – Explore the peaks and troughs of the heavy metal scene, as told by the women who fought to claim their place on stage.  
3. A Woman Is A Risky Bet: Six Orchestra Conductors, directed by Christina Olofson (1987) – This Swedish documentary puts six women conductors – Victoria Bond, Veronika Dudarova, JoAnn Falletta, Camilla Kolchinsky, Ortrud Mann, and Kerstin Nerbe – centre stage in the traditionally male-dominated world of classical music. 
4. The Go-Go’s, directed by Allison Ellwood (2020) – One of the first all-women bands to make it big globally, this film documents The Go-Go’s rise to fame in the rock world in the ’80s, and how their rise to stardom had a darker side than what fans saw on stage. 
5. Sisters With Transistors, directed by Lisa Rovner (2021) – This film platforms the stories of radical women who make radical sounds, ensuring that the women who have been silenced and forgotten make noise once again in the intersection of music and technology. 

Since Yesterday: The Untold Story Of Scottish Girl Bands will be released in selected UK cinemas from 18 October 

Leah Commandeur is an Irish writer based in London, covering film, music and culture for publications including Wonderland, Man About Town and more